Dozens of young revellers were taken to hospital after an MTV concert at Ebrington Square in Derry on Saturday, Belfast Live reports.

Thirty people - some aged as young as 13 - were treated at Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry due to assaults, drugs or drink both during and after the Club MTV event.

An accident and emergency consultant said resources were “stretched to their limits” by the influx of stricken music lovers into the hospital.

Dr Paul Bayliss said: “I know it’s a night of fun for them, but when you’re stitching up their faces, you’re thinking this scar is a souvenir they’ll have for the rest of their lives.”

He added: “There was a significant increase in attendances from early evening on Saturday through to the early hours of Sunday morning as a result of the concert.

“There was a large number of young people, ranging in age from around 13 to 25, who presented at the department, most of them intoxicated with alcohol and or recreational drugs.”

Dr Bayliss said there was also a spike in the number of patients who said they had been assaulted by people under the influence of drink or drugs.

“Our usual challenging Saturday evening became a more dangerous environment for all our patients as our fixed staffing resources strived to cope with the additional workload,” he added.

Event organiser Legacy Promotions said it was considering a ban on under-18s attending similar events in the future.

The firm said there was strict security and a medical triage system within the venue, claiming the problem arose from concert-goers drinking before the show.

Legacy Promotions’ Robert Allen told BBC Radio Foyle: “At the gates we were dealing with people who were inebriated under the age of 18.

“We have a duty of care to either treat them there or take them to our triage. Regardless of what age they are, we had to treat them.”

He said organisers do not want “the responsibility of having to look after under-age (concert-goers)”, adding “a few hundred” young people were deemed under the influence of alcohol and turned away from the event.

Dr Bayliss added: “The drugs that are being peddled at these concerts are not regulated in any way and there is no way of knowing the dangers of consuming them, especially when washed down with alcohol.

“It can lead to extreme vulnerability to all forms of assault as they lose their ability to object to whatever might happen to them.”